How well can you hear the 2 speaker set-ups vs. the 4 speakers ones? Is it worth it to just go w/ the 4 speaker setups...or would 2 be enough to get good sound back there at riding distance. I'd hope the added weight, cost (speakers/amp) would make 2 extra speakers worth the investment? <BR> <BR>thx.

More speakers do not neccessarily equal more sound. Your choice in speakers and how you power them are more important then how many. 2 will work fine if you get a high quality speaker and give it sufficent power. I personally have 4 on my tower with a JL 300/4 powering them and its plenty loud to hear. If your choice is 4 ok speakers or 2 great speakers then go with the 2, just keep in mind more speakers means more amps and that can lead to more batteries, bigger wiring, etc...

I put 2 Infinity speakers on mine and could not here them. I added a second set and can hear them fine now. I read an article that described how volume is about the amount of air being pushed, so more speakers push more air therefore more volume, so I went with that. As for amps, wiring them in parallel will reduce the ohms and allow your amp to push more power to the set (as long as your amp is 2 ohm stable). My amp is rated at 150 watts RMS at 4 ohms, and 250 watts RMS at 2 ohms, so I am pushing 250 watts to each set of speakers which splits out to 125 watts per. <BR> <BR>Of course there are many on this board that are smarter than I, but I am just telling you what I did. <BR> <BR>(Message edited by chris_hargis on July 09, 2003) <BR> <BR>(Message edited by chris_hargis on July 09, 2003)

Here is the part of the article I was referring to. It is from Dr Sound from the Carvin website. <BR> <BR>This takes us to a common misconception: "more Wattage = more volume". Many people think that if they need more volume, they need to pump up the power. While more power will surely increase volume, the power must grow exponentially to make a major difference in volume. In other words, it takes 10 times the power to double your volume (and that's assuming your speakers can handle 10 times the power). The best way to increase your volume is to increase the number of speakers. Say you have an amp that puts out 500W per channel @ 8 Ohms and 800W per channel @ 4 Ohms driving two 8 Ohm 15" woofers in their own cabinets. Right now the woofers are getting up to 500W each. If you traded your amp for one that puts put 1000W per channel @ 8 Ohms your volume capability would only slightly increase (because you still only have two 15" speakers). On the other hand, if you added two more identical speaker cabinets with the same amp, you would double your coverage (actually, your acoustic output could quadruple). In this set-up, each speaker box would only be getting 400W vs. the 500W or 1000W but you would have up to 4 times the acoustic output.